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Residents in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., can begin to subscribe to Verizon Communications' FiOS video service, Verizon said, under a contract that gives the telecom five years to complete its build in the city of about 30,000 people about 75 miles north of New York City. A Verizon official estimated that about three-quarters of the city's residents should be within FiOS' service area by mid-2009.

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Verizon FiOS' "Custom TV" bundles and its forthcoming over-the-top service are "two very distinct ecosystems" that should not be conflated, Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said. The OTT service, which is expected to debut this summer, is about "having the consumer consume more content on their wireless handset through the Verizon wireless network" and should not be confused with "linear TV content," Shammo said.

Verizon Communications expanded its FiOS Quantum TV service to the Philadelphia market on Wednesday, starting within the city itself, and will offer it to the rest of southeastern Pennsylvania and Delaware next week. Quantum is FiOS' premium tier and includes a whole-house DVR with the ability to store 200 hours of HD video and record 12 shows at once. Verizon has introduced Quantum in four other markets in recent weeks.

Verizon Communications might bring its FiOS TV service to several towns in Albany County, N.Y., according to a local report. Verizon, which has just agreed to add FiOS to the village of Scotia in a neighboring county, was said to be talking with officials from three Albany County towns about obtaining a franchise.

Verizon Communications said its FiOS service has passed about 1.8 million New York residences and businesses, or 58% of the total market. The telecom's franchise agreement required Verizon to reach the 54% mark by the end of 2010 and the entire city by 2014.

With a multiplatform model that includes TV and online, premium channel Epix has developed a strategy that lets affiliates such as Verizon Communications' FiOS create their own subscription models as well as customize their bandwidth services, said CEO Mark Greenberg. FiOS TV customers pay $10 a month for the HD or regular pay-channel, on-demand video content and access to stream movies online. "You have an opportunity from ... FiOS's perspective to create better bandwidth speeds and monetize [them]," Greenberg said.